I bought a new car a few days ago. After driving a fifteen-year-old Chevy Cavalier with 137,000 miles on it, the new car is a nice change of pace.I mean literally a change of pace. The old car barely accelerated anymore, and this new car—even though it only has four cylinders—has plenty of giddy up.It’s nice to drive and not have to worry about how loud the muffler is, or if the heat shield is going to keep rattling or dragging on the concrete. I no longer have to worry about inadvertently causing a road rage incident just because my turn signal works only sometimes.And although I like to tell myself the faded splotchy paint, rusted area beneath the gas tank door, and cracks in the dashboard just added to the character of the car, the truth is the car looked old and junky.To say nothing of how technology has changed in cars since 2002. The old car had a CD player that worked when it wanted to, but no backup camera, no Bluetooth, and no bar graph that shows fuel efficiency over the previous fifteen minutes. After a few days of driving this new car, I’m amazed that any car can operate without any of those things.This new car is making me soft.This is the end of the line for the old car. I planned to trade it in to the dealership when I bought the new car, but even the dealership didn’t want it. They claimed that disposing of the vehicle would cost them so much, and the car was worth so little, that they couldn’t offer anything for it.So to the junkyard it goes. The guy I talked to at the junkyard offered a couple hundred bucks for the car, which is its value based on scrap metal prices in my area. I’m tempted to keep it and sell it off for parts on my own, but it doesn’t take too long to realize how much of a pain in the ass that would become.Although I love the new car, and the peace of mind that comes along with it, part of me will miss the old car. I’m nostalgic for everything all the time, so that shouldn’t be too surprising. I’ve spent hours working on this car to keep it running the past few years, and to see it just end up in a junkyard seems like a waste.With my own two hands I’ve replaced the alternator, the water pump, the rear brakes, the front brakes (a few times), the front wheel bearing, the catalytic converter, and numerous other easy repairs like the battery, sensors, and thermostat. I’ve got dozens (hundreds?) of hours of sweat equity in that car.But in the end, my skill level wasn’t high enough to keep it going.For the past few months something with the rear wheel is making it more difficult to come to a complete stop. The check engine light has been on for over a year, telling me I need to replace the engine coolant temperature sensor, which I’ve done three times to no avail. When the internet told me that a short in the wires from the computer was the likely culprit, I spent an afternoon in a junkyard trying to harvest wires before realizing I was in over my head and abandoning the project.So the time came when I had to move on and pour resources into a replacement.But that car has been around for fifteen years. My life has changed a lot during that time, and this car has been witness to all of it.We can’t just accumulate stuff though. At least not stuff that occupies as much space as a car does. And it’s not like I’m going to keep it in storage and let my kids drive it when they get their drivers licenses.There are two types of people in this world: people who trade their car every two or three years and have a perpetual car payment, and people who get a car and drive it until they’ve squeezed every last ounce of utility out of it. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which group I fall under.It’s time to let it go, though. I’ll take pictures before the junkyard comes to pick it up. (Incidentally, who knew that junkyards pickup cars? Although I guess that’s exactly what happened in that old Victory Auto Wreckers commercial from the 80s. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you obviously aren’t from Chicago!)Pictures are the way to remember things. Looking at the car will bring back memories, and it’s those memories that I want, not the car itself. Better to look at pictures of the car and bring the memories back that way. Pictures take up less space, and I don’t have to buy insurance for those. But we can buy a new car, we can’t buy new pictures, so insurance is worthless anyway.Speaking of insurance, it just occurred to me that I paid more to insure this car for the previous six months than I’ll get for selling it to the junkyard.Yes, it’s time to let it go.Wasn't that well-written and fun to read? You should subscribe to my blog and we'll send you an e-mail every time I write a new one. Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.
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